As The Jungle Book song Bear Necessities goes, “forget about your worries and your conflict” can be a little bit difficult when you find yourself face to face with a real bear.
Bears are common in the Northern Hemisphere. As human habitats stretch toward the wilderness, more and more animals cross their paths with those of humans. This can lead to dangerous encounters especially when precautions are not in place. In these situations, keeping your distance is still the best advice.
According to the National Park Service, one should also remain calm as bears, more often than not, are not really willing to attack you. Once in a standoff (对峙), avoid making sudden moves or loud noises as these can trigger aggression. 7-year-old Huxley did exactly what he was told when he encountered a massive bear.
It was a Sunny morning. Huxley was wandering on his way home when a big hulking (笨重的) figure emerges from behind him. A hurried glance backward, he knew it was a black bear. The bear approached cautiously at first, probably sizing up the figure in front of him. A second later, perhaps judging that Huxley was no match for it, the bear burst into a full sprint (冲刺) and ran its way toward the boy.
At first, Huxley was really frightened. However, he knew it was impossible to run or fight with the big beast. In the moment of crisis, he remembered his mother reminds him regularly about these possible encounters. She tells him that if Huxley finds himself face to face with a bear and there are no adults around, he should remain calm.
Huxley calmed down at thinking of this. He stared at the bear down without any movement. This might have been the reason why the young bear stopped dead in its tracks. They faced each other motionless, and there was only a foot distance between them.
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From around the corner, a neighbor hurriedly walked to the scene.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The neighbor continued to pressure the bear while the animal tried its best to find an escape route.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________We moved to our new place, and everything was new and unfamiliar. I didn’t have new friends, so most of the time when I was free at home, I stayed with Socky, my cat and friend. One morning in winter, it was very cold outside and people mainly stayed indoors to keep warm. Before going off to my high school in Ouyen, Victoria, I called our pregnant(怀孕的) cat to be fed, but she didn’t come. I thought she’d probably found somewhere to have her kittens and would turn up later. But she didn’t.
When Socky still didn’t come at dinnertime, I anxiously asked my mum, “Where is Socky?” But she didn’t know either. The next day, Socky still didn’t appear and I really started to worry. Socky had kept me company for years, and she was just like my family member.
Socky had given birth to some lovely kittens before. She had a habit of having her kittens in strange places, so first I checked all her hidey-holes where she used to stay but she wasn’t in any of them. I became extremely anxious. What could have happened? “Where are you, dear Socky?” Having waited for hours again, I couldn’t sit still. The next day was Saturday and I had the whole day to search for her. Thinking over all the possible places where she could shelter herself, I rechecked under the house, then in the garage under and behind old books, every place I could think of, but still no Socky.
After lunch I took some food scraps(剩饭) with me in case I found her, then began searching the back shed, which was huge and filled with cardboard boxes full of junk and empty tea-chests(茶叶箱). After about an hour of moving cardboard boxes from one place to another and back again, I was tired out. I sat down on an upturned tea-chest to have a rest when I heard faint mewing(喵). I put my head up against each of the tea-chests, pressing my ear against the plywood(夹板) so I could catch the faint sounds. I had to move each one carefully before I could look inside.
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2．请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Finally, I found Socky and her three tiny kittens.
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Socky was very pleased to see me and purred(发出呼噜声) as loudly as she could.
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“Bang. . !” Sara pushed the door open. She threw her school bag onto the floor and called out, “I’m home!” No answer. The house was silent. It sounded empty, but she knew it wasn’t. Her mum and dad were working upstairs.
Sara got a glass of orange juice, went into the conservatory (玻璃房) and sat down in her favourite chair. The garden was still in the dark afternoon. On one side, her mum’s garden was neat and tidy with boring short grass, boring straight flowerbeds and boring straight paths. But on the other side, Sara’s Nature Garden looked wild and exciting with big dead sunflowers and tall grasses.
“Nobody is interested in me. Mum and dad only think about their work,” she thought sadly.
Then she recalled: One month earlier, she learned in a magazine that many dogs were abandoned because their owners got bored with them; One hour earlier, she saw a cute dog wagging its tail and licking her friend’s face.
Sara knew today was special. Today things were changing. She couldn’t wait any longer. It’s time to talk to her parents.
So Sara got up from her chair and climbed all the way to the loft (阁楼). “Mum, I want a talk.” said Sara. “Just a minute!” Her mum clicked on the keyboard, took off her glasses and turned to her daughter. Sara coughed, took a deep breath, and told her mum that she wanted a dog. “No, Sara. That’s impossible,” her mum said firmly. Sara went to her father but got the same answer. She rushed into her room angrily and slammed the door shut.
Later, Sara’s mum knocked at the door and went in. “Darling, we know this is important to you. You can have a dog if you take the responsibility. But look at your Nature Garden, your school bag, your bedroom! What a mess! Do you think you can take good care of a dog?” said her mum.
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Sara was lost in thought and decided to make some changes.
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_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Last summer, Hilda worked as a volunteer with dolphin trainers at a sea life park. Her job was to make sure the tanks were free of any items so that the trainers could train the dolphins to fetch specific items. However, one day after cleaning, one of the dolphins, Maya, presented Hilda with a candy wrapper from the tank. When Katherine, the trainer, saw this, she blamed Hilda for her carelessness. Upset but not discouraged by this event, Hilda decided to do some spying on Maya.
The next morning, Hilda arrived at the park early. She put on her scuba gear (水下呼吸器) and jumped into the tank for her usual, underwater sweep. Finding nothing in the tank, she climbed out of the water just in time to see Katherine jumping in on the other side. After what happened yesterday, Hilda knew what she was doing. She watched as Katherine performed her underwater search, but Hilda wasn’t surprised when she surfaced empty-handed.
During the tank sweeps, Maya had been swimming playfully, but now the dolphin stopped suddenly and swam to the back part of the tank where the filter (过滤) box was located. She stuck her nose down behind the box and then swam away. What was Maya doing back there? Hilda wondered. She jumped back into the water and swam over to take a look behind the box, and her question was answered. Hilda then swam across the tank following Maya’s path and emerged from the water to find Katherine removing her scuba gear. As Katherine turned around, her mouth dropped open. There was Maya at the edge of the tank with a comb (梳子) in her mouth waiting for her treat.
“Maya! Where did you get that?” demanded Katherine, taking the comb and throwing her a fish. “I know where she got it,” declared Hilda climbing out of the tank with a handful of items still wet from their watery, resting place. “What’s all this?” Katherine asked, obviously confused.
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(2)请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
“This is Maya’s secret,” Hilda said with a big smile.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Now Katherine realized what had been going on.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Braving the Waters
Joel Boyers and his wife Melody Among were heading home from the Nashville airport. Among had just earned her helicopter pilot’s licence when Boyers received a call from a stranger. The caller told him that her brother and his two daughters were trapped on their roof in Waverly, 60 miles from Nashville. They were surrounded by rising floodwaters caused by the heaviest rainfall that year.
Desperate, the caller begged, “Could you please, please rescue my loved ones?”
Boyers, 41, looked at the address the caller mentioned while glancing at the storm clouds. “Ma’am,” he said, “no one will fly in this weather ...” But even before he finished the sentence, Boyers knew they would go back up. “I’ve got a daughter myself,” Boyers says. “I’ll see what I can do.” He put the brother’s address into his phone and they drove back to the airport.
Before long they were in the air, unprepared for what they were about to see. It was nothing but raging water below them. There were two houses on fire. Cars in trees. Tons of debris (残骸). No one was going to be able to swim in that.
The flooding also took out cell phone service, meaning that Boyers couldn’t use his phone to pinpoint (精确定位) the house he was looking for. He flew on regardless.
As Boyers controlled the helicopter, Among began searching for people caught out on rooftops, bridges — anywhere they could land and get them on board. Suddenly, she saw a teenager trapped in a tree. The teen, soaking wet and exhausted, was barely out of the water. Since there was no place to land, Boyers lowered the helicopter until it approached to just above the water line. Among jumped out and swam to the tree, where she helped the teen into the helicopter. The teen was shaking and looking behind anxiously when she said, “Thank you so much, but my sister and uncle ... please help them ...”
Boyers dropped off the teen on a patch of land across the street. Then he and Among were back in the air.
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Seconds later, they spotted two people on the roof of a destroyed house.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Their mission ended 90 minutes after it began, when professional rescue teams showed up.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________After spending Thanksgiving on Uncle Howard’s farm, he gave us two turkey eggs. My younger brother Chris was so excited that he nearly dropped his egg on the way home. Dad put the eggs under an old hen in our backyard. Every day Chris and I would check to see if they’d hatched yet. 26 days later, two little creatures waddled (摇摇摆摆地走) behind the hen. As they got older, one was dead. We named the other Timothy.
Timothy liked to wander in the woods and find tasty berries and weed seeds. Mom kept telling us not to get too attached to Timothy, because we were going to have him for Thanksgiving. But we never paid too much attention to what that really meant. One day, Dad gave Chris and me instructions. “I want you to start giving him corn along with his regular feed,” he said. “We want a nice fat bird for Thanksgiving.” After Dad walked away, Chris’s face began to pucker, just as he did before he started to cry.
“Don’t worry, Chris,” I said comfortingly. “We’ll save Timothy, somehow.”
“Why don’t we give him away?” Chris suggested.
“No.” I said. “If we do, he’ll just end up on someone else’s Thanksgiving table.” Suddenly I had an idea. “Hey, Chris, you know that small cave in the woods?” Chris nodded. “We can take Timothy there. We’ll cover the entrance with a wire net and hide him till Thanksgiving is over.” “Yeah!” We were so excited that we gave each other high-fives. We took Timothy out of his cage and left him in the cave with water and plenty of food. We piled branches over the opening to hide the entrance.
One day Dad sent us out to look for him. Both of us felt guilty, but we wanted to save Timothy’s life, so we kept quiet. Finally, Dad decided that a fox must have gotten him. That year Uncle Howard provided a turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner. The next day a big snowstorm hit. It was days before we could get out and see Timothy. When we got to the cave, we saw something had happened.
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The wire net was pulled away from the entrance, and Timothy was gone.
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“Look at that！It’s Timothy！”Mom cried one day.
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Josie and I wanted a dog more than anything else on the earth. We wished for one every time we threw coins in a fountain or watched the evening star drop behind the trees. However, our mother believed that we were still too thoughtless to take on the task of raising a pet. She had witnessed our forgetfulness on household chores and getting into small conflicts. In her eyes, these were signs that we lacked the necessary responsibility.
One summer night, as we sat together on the roof, Josie saw something. She pointed down toward a dark shadow, “What’s that?”
For one astonishing second, Josie and I stared at each other. Then we rushed down onto the doorway. There in our yard stood a black dog. Josie made a little kissing noise and held out her hand. The dog came to us slowly, taking a few steps forward, then a step back, not sure whether to trust us. She was so skinny that I could just feel every bone, and her coat was messy.
“We’re going to have a dog!” My inside was full of excitement, just like before Christmas or our birthday.
“What’s a good name?” said Josie.
The perfect name wrote itself in my mind, “Shadow!”
The next day, we piled together all the pocket money we had to buy all kinds of dog foods and hid it in various places because we were afraid Mom wouldn’t approve that if she knew we were feeding a homeless dog.
That night, after our parents were asleep, we silently slipped downstairs to feed Shadow. We carefully poured the dog food into the bowl, trying to make as little noise as possible. Shadow, who had been waiting eagerly by our side, wagged (摇晃) her tail. As we placed the bowl on the floor, a creaking (吱吱的) sound filled the house. Suddenly, the kitchen light was switched on, illuminating the room and revealing our shocked faces.
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It was our mother, standing there surprisingly.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Mom decided to give us a chance to prove we could be responsible owners.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________My sister Josie and I wanted a dog more than anything else. We begged our parents many times but always got the same answer. One summer night, however, in our yard stood a big black female dog. We couldn’t believe our eyes!
Josie made a little kissing noise and held out her hand. The dog came to us slowly, taking a few steps forward, then a step back. She was so skinny and her coat was full of dirt. When she came closer, I was glad to find no tags around her neck.
Josie brought milk and several eggs for her. But when she finished them, she ran into the bush and disappeared. “Don’t go!” Josie cried, “Come back!” But she was gone. “I think she’ll be back when she gets hungry again,” I said.
The next night, we set the food in the driveway. Soon the dog appeared. We called her Lucky, hugged her gently and showed her the food. She sniffed it, drooling (垂涎) and licking her mouth, but for some reason she wouldn’t eat it.
The next minute Lucky did something unexpected. She grabbed the plate in her mouth and dragged it away. In the following nights it was the same scene. But the strangest thing was that even though Lucky kept taking the food, she didn’t seem to be putting on any weight.
On the fifth night, Lucky didn’t come as usual. We were worried. When we almost gave up, she appeared. She barked at us and ran back and forth. Then she ran towards the bush slowly, still barking. We chased after her. She ran and barked, turning to see if we were following. After about ten minutes, Lucky finally stopped, wagging her tail quietly. She looked at us, barked and disappeared through a dark hole in the wall of leaves and branches. I pointed toward the hole. “No way I’m going in there,” Josie said.
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2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
However, after hesitating for a little while, we finally made a decision.
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Worried but excited, we went home with Lucky and her four little babies.
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In July, my dad, mom and I flew to Whitehorse to care for my sick old grandfather. We planned to spend two months in the town of my youth.
A few days before we arrived, my grandfather called to say he was being flow n to Vancouver for another operation. My dad and mom had already booked the air tickets and their leave from work, so even though my grandfather wouldn’t be there, we made the trip north anyway.
Grandfather kept a puppy. It was the only companion of my grandfather while we were not in Whitehorse. He had adopted it from a local shelter(two years earlier and renamed him “Scruffy” because it looked untidy. Its fur was messy. Its ears were like two wings when it ran. While we were alone in my grandfather’s house with nothing to do, Scruffy saved us. The dog needed to be walked. Those walks were chances to re-visit where I’d grown up. I had left that small town behind as soon as I finished high school and had rarely visited home. Scruffy and I took my family to the school, where my picture still hung. We walked through the forest where I once rode my bike. With no one to talk to when my parents were occupied with their own business. I found myself chatting with Scruffy. He was too excited to see me. I gave him many nicknames: Scruffster, Scruff-man, Scruffmaster. He would happily respond to them all.
By the fall, we were back in Toronto and my grandfather was back in Whitehorse. My mom and her brothers took turns flying up to take care of him.
注意：
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2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
We visited my grandfather again in November.
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After Grandfather’s death, we had to rehome Scruffy.
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“Sophie would make a good therapy(治疗) dog.”
The day my dog trainer said those words, I didn’t even know what a therapy dog was. I certainly had no idea what features my little dog had that would make her a candidate. But why not, I thought, if we can help people in need of some cheering up?
Last week, I accompanied Sophie to a hospital for our first day on the job. In the year and a half I had spent getting her certified, I had learned what to expect. I would bring Sophie into a patient’s room to be a pleaser, and then we would move on. Of course, Sophie herself couldn’t understand her purpose in all of this, but she was always happy to meet new people, and that was enough.
We walked through the wide automatic sliding glass doors and into the hall, where we were met by a nurse who ran the therapy dog program at the hospital. “Welcome,” Sophie, she said. “I’ll be taking you two around today.”
I followed the nurse down the hall. Sophie trotted (小跑) along at my side, just as she had been trained. “We’re a care unit,” the nurse explained. “Most of our patients are seniors.” I knew how important it was for Sophie to be her gentlest. “She was trained and ready for this, I reminded myself.
Up ahead was an old lady making her way down the hall with a walker. A nurse walked beside her, holding on to a gait belt (步态训练带)to keep her steady. We caught up with them, but the patient remained focused on her walker. As we were passing by at a safe distance, the lady turned her walker towards a chair against the wall. “Okay, we’ll stop for a rest,” her nurse said. Once the lady was settled, she pointed a finger at Sophie, as if to say “Please bring me that dog.”
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I picked up Sophie and placed her in the lady’s lap.
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“It’s a wonder! We had thought the lady lost the ability to speak,” the nurse told me excitedly.
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